


Paradox Space Can't Stop Him

by Off_Line



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, F/F, God help me finish this, It's not actually finished, M/M, Multi, i lied theres a lot of angst, just a little
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2019-09-28 04:52:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17176265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Off_Line/pseuds/Off_Line
Summary: Alpha Dave Strider is famous, cool, and basically living under a poorly-managed dictatorship. One day, he sees a zap in his room.





	1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

==> Introduction 

An introduction... Why would you need an introduction? You already know who you are, you're pretty sure. Well, you know your name and what you look like, but if you really took a second to think about things that way you suppose that anybody could be you. Who doesn't know who you are anyway? Even Scandinavian grandmas stuck upon a mountain too have heard of the striking name "David Elizabeth Strider: best movie director to ever live!" You're that cool. It is you.

==> Introduce yourself.

Your name is D Strider, and you're possibly laying ass up in bed after a fruitful night of banging chicks and scoring Oscars. Your glasses are still on your face, albeit askew, and you're currently busy trying to remember what else you know about yourself. Actually, maybe you should hold that thought: you are in great need of an aspirin and some water. 

==> D: get a drug and wash it down with water. 

You could try; but it isn't like you could probably get out of bed right now, unless you want to hold onto every little thing you're close to and probably end up knocking your shelf of, uh, dead things off completely. You should get the fuck up. You'll have to eventually. Rolling over, and feeling the cover twist around your right side and trap you even further within it, you scowled slightly and clumsily pushed it off of your body but ended up just tangling your left hand in it and being way too lazy to push it off. God, damn, is this shit attached to you or what? Sighing, you finally muster up some of that energy you've been pretending you didn't have up until now and let the covers fall onto the floor dejectedly. Once you sat up and somehow pulled yourself to your feet, you took off your glasses and looked at the sad little cover on the floor. Look at it! It's about to cry. 

You're clearly demented. 

You shrug off the thought of a crying inanimate object and stumble to your drawer. Your bed had remained in the same left corner of the room as ever, however now you had a couple more shelves, and thicker window curtains to keep the shitty intruding Texas sunlight out. Some photographs of crows looking especially cool were pinned to your wall, and you would know they're wicked and cool because you can see them with how close you are to the wall. It's too dark in here, and you seriously do not understand why you don't hire someone to come clean for you sometime. (It could be because you always say you love your room however you leave it and, in the case in which someone suddenly decided to hire a hitman and the hitman comes to pull a hitman stunt on you. Then he'll step on the broken bricks and the family of electronic snakes that you decided to name the "S-team", even though they're really just cables and you don't know why you decided to name a bundle of cables that's all around your room that. "Snake team"? Of course. You softly muttering to yourself that that is the best name that there is for your little family occupying the floor. 

==> Dave: flip the light switch on. 

What are you, crazy? You don't have your shades on and you sure as fuck want to keep seeing. 

==> Dave: just get the damn aspirin already. 

You decide that that's a better idea than just turning that hell-bent inside-sun on. You slapped your hand against your mouth, aspirin literally shot into your mouth and dissolving slowly while you still haven't gotten the damn poor glass of toilet-sink water in right after it! 

You're such a genius, it is you. 

Either way, you decide not to blabber on much more and get to the somewhat pristine royal toilet room that we all know as a basic bathroom. Not that it really helped, the pill was already half dissolved in your mouth and it kind of made you gag a little bit.

==> Dave: introduce yourself.

Your name is D Strider. You're a tall, kind of lanky guy who has red plastered everywhere. Your eyes, suits, boxers and lube is red. Your STRIFE SPECIBUS is "Katana Kind" and you have a Katana on you at all times, no matter the situation. It's never bad to have a big, slim anime knife with you. You're currently thirty years of age, and you can already feel the old age hitting you in the face with all the white hair you're currently getting. No matter the plucking you do, it always comes back, and you used the only two brain cells in your brain to reason with yourself about the lack of logic over pulling all of your hair out. Would it really be that big of a change anyway? Your hair was, well half of it still is, platinum blond. You're sure the paparazzi will get on your dick about it though, and honestly you're pretty sure your subconscious was getting you bald because of the paparazzi in the first place. Your eyes are red, but you rarely see your eyes nowadays, not that you've ever really seen them, you half mumble to yourself. 

You live in an apartment alone, with a lot of shitty old video game consoles you bought just for the shits and giggles, and a PC. The kitchen fridge is almost always empty, save for the ketchup and premium AJ bottles. It would be safe to assume that if you ever let this famous writer into your home, that she would make a pretty safe assumption to you only eating takeout. As if the boxes of Chinese ramen takeout didn't make it obvious enough in the first place. There are tons of different swords, mostly broken, everywhere thrown around on the living room floor. 

And, that's about it! You think that's enough of an introduction. You've been staring at yourself, eyeing the eyebags you've gained and the way your unkempt stubble looked everytime you opened your mouth to sigh out at yourself in some level of shame. Good God: that was a good waste of time. You're still in your cummy boxers too, great. Way to set your priorities straight Dave! But you still decide to lean in and admire the amount of small little cuts you could find on your face. There are... A fucking lot of those. Wow, okay. No need to get worked up over your own face, Strider. There's always time to jerk your own ego off and you think you know you should take a shower and move on with your day before you decide to ironically jerk off your ego quite literally. 

==> Dave: take a shower. 

You then proceed to stop galavanting around and promptly wash your disgusting body and rid it of the bad bacteria. That is, to say, you consumed what was left of the warm water and had to get out the moment it was too cold. Wrapping a slightly damp towel (from your last little fiesta in the shower) around your waist after you try to dry yourself with it as much as possible and venture out to look through the piles of house clothes, trying to find a clean set of clothes. A clean set of very, very cool and ironic clothes if they are there. If not, that would be a good sign to visit a laundromat once again. Fame and power didn't really make you any less of a typical cheapskate, did it? You can conclude that it didn't change you at all. You just allowed yourself to be a greedy little shit and find even more incredibly horrendous ways to make famous movies. 

Ah, at fucking last! Clean clothes!!!!!

... They're ugly. God, who got you these? There's just no style, no irony, my sub layer of anything at all painted on these clothes. No air of mystery. Bitter to your core (ironically), you put the clothes on, followed by the completely black shorts AND T-Shirt. Who makes such clothes in the 2040s anymore dude. 

Whatever. You smell yourself for two seconds and decide you should get some deodorant in case you have to go out and do something other than your laundry outside. Your head is still being an ultimate pain in the ass. You should have taken even harder drugs for that fucking headache.

==> Dave: answer the phone. 

What? You don't recall putting a phone anywhere, hold up. You can hear the thirty year old Minecraft theme lulling in and out of your empty head but you're not entirely sure where it's coming from. 

==> Dave: find your phone after searching for it frantically in case it was someone important.

You were getting to that, God damn it! Or you would have, with the slight exception that you noticed a small, bright flash somehow happening. Maybe the earth just decided to chew and spit up a very blue flashy flash that lasted for one second. You saw it though, you're sure. Or you hope, you don't know if you're finally getting some dementia. Or your anxiety has spiked up once again to comfort the paranoia that loves creeping up on you from time to time. You don't know if it would be better or worse if you started developing some signs of some sort of mental illness, again. 

Whatever, you have a sword, and the prayers to the sweet Juggalo Gods that you just made up on the spot, hopefully you're good to go and won't die. Hopefully, whatever is in that God damn room isn't going to rip you to comedic shreds. You hesitantly, after taking your anime sword out of your sylladex, edge near the door that you mindlessly left ajar and hear that the phone had abruptly stopped calling. Makes sense, since you didn't answer it automatically like the creep you usually are. You become extremely aware of yourself, and your surroundings the moment you decide someone could maybe try to take your neck and break it in two; and so, you become much more aware of what's around you. You realise this place probably reeks of shit since you haven't opened the window at all, and that the gentle breeze that you can feel making the tips of your hair flutter can't be from an open window. The grip you had tightens even more once you decide to slowly push the door open and cautiously look around. 

What you see, instead, is a figure in blue pajamas, or that's what you actually think they really are anyway with how loose they seem around said person. They seem to be paying no mind to the hood slowly flowing from side to side, and floating up and down so gently that you wouldn't have really noticed had you not stared at it intently to make sure you're not fucking insane. Your eyes drift upwards at the hood until you see the top of this person(?)'s head slightly dominate the shelf of dead shit you've got, seemingly interested with the top shelf of your current dead shit. You see the barely transparent breeze fluttering around their arms and hands while they're busily stroking along the clear, polished glass; you raise your sword much higher than it was before and let out a low, loud sigh to make your presence very much clear. It seems the tall, slim person finally got the hint and abruptly turned around in just the split of a second to see you, dumbly pointing your pointy anime sword at him. God damn, you still like the work this Katana does, okay? 

The face, blurry and unclear at first, finally settles down to a tight-lipped looking young man that was more than likely stabbing his buckteeth into his lower lip while his narrowed eyes (or you presumed they were narrow, the dramatic lighting and windy shit going on made it hard to see through his thin, rectangular-shaped glasses too well) analysed you just as you analysed him. 

==> Dave: think about what this shit means. 

Your lips part out of pure awe, and reflex, and whatever other adjective there is out there to currently explain your current predicament in which you are at a loss for words. You're not quite sure how to explain to whoever might be mind reading your mind right now, but you've seen this guy. This defined, derpy-looking concentrated face of what looks like a guy in his early twenties. Ah, the good old days. The absolute peak of your life was there (last you checked, anyway). Whenever... You don't have dreams about dying, about the ways you die, about someone you think you really know but only ever see a flash of within your dreams and torturing you, when you don't see yourself burning in an eternal inferno in which you constantly try to battle against one horrendous thing or another, it's all blue and gold. Sometimes you go to sleep hoping to somehow awake into a world in which you're light as air and have a guide to show you all around this vast, empty land full of pastel flowers and infinite clear skies over your head, and his. You've always barely gotten glimpses of his face, always saw one quarter of it but not the rest, or half and half not so much, and so on. But piecing all his face... Parts, together, you know it's him! You can feel it in the calmness he radiates, the friendly reassurance you remember so well. 

It's sad to say you were closest with a shitty projection your subconscious made up for you. Or so you thought, anyway; considering it turned out that this, this literal God had not, in fact, just existed in your pretty little head all along. Or maybe you're just fucking retarded. You're not sure which one is the actual truth. But... You're kind of hopeful right now, so you'll just, desperately entertain yourself with the hopes that this man is real, that you can touch him, and keep feeling the allure he radiates with almost constantly. 

He decides to open his mouth first, while still half a foot away from bumping the top of his head into your God damn roof, basically, and you decide to stop staring at him right in the eyes, and let them shoot up to his hair. Moving as slowly as time itself, along the natural breeze this fucker seemed to keep giving off like a God of free uncanned oxygen, beginning his conversation with such liberty that it really surprises you that you haven't just dropped dead in front of this man and stole all his fucking magnetic oxygen from him. 

"Hello, Dave! I really missed you bro!" 

God, how do you even respond to that? What would be the perfect response for this exponentially important little phrase. Considering you should make a really cool first impression on this Dream Flighty God of yours, more than anything else to be completely honest with yourself, maybe you should think with BOTH of your brain cells instead of just one this time, just for the sake of some of your dignity and Strider Pride staying afloat. 

"'Sup Egbert." 

Magnificent, perfect, utterly surprising and yet again not even that surprising knowing who you really are deep down. A nervous wreck excited to meet your brain's celestial idol. You regard the hazy, warm feeling that's currently clouding the back of your head the very moment you try to think about this, stranger's name, and it seems that your brain is against your every thought today, because as you try harder to remember how you seemingly know his name, the pounding heat in the back of your head creeps up on the rest of it, and down your neck. 

"Looks like you got some preeeetty sweet stuff here! You look older, too... Oh, hm."

He looks at you, then right through before moving his attention onto something else, slowly, very slowly letting himself or maybe just stopping the wind? You don't really understand how this guy can fly, honestly. Either way, he stops doing whatever he was doing before and focuses on looking around your dumb room. It looks like he's actually looking for something. You think you could hear him curse under his breath while you casually let your body slump in the middle of the room without so much as a second thought. He walks around, and you notice the little click clack of his shoes as he walks around, and you realise his plain ass sneakers are a bright, radiant yellow. 

"So... Er, where am I Dave?" 

You shrug almost automatically, but realise he probably and actually doesn't have another pair of eyes lodged in the back of his head. 

"Texas. Wait, no, uh, 2035, welcome to this decade bro. You know, incase you aren't actually a "kid of this generation", and by that I mean Sea Hitler's dictatorship which has put a stop to my ironic Troll Tony Hawk YouTube video parodies." 

You know you got somewhat personal with this random guy that popped up in your room and which you know the name of, but you really have been avoiding your writer's psychoanalytic episodes lately. 

"Oh, I see! Well, I kind of don't have that much time, so-"

Pale Guy With Black Hair wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and smirked slightly, which made you avert your gaze from his awkward looking little smirk, with those horse teeth just jutting out there like they ain't anybody's business. You feel like he implied somethIng with this, honestly, but you have no idea what it was exactly. 

"So you just popped in for a quick visit bro? Not cool, not cool, I didn't even get the ketchup out of the fridge."

"The, er, why- are you gonna go on one of your weird rants again about stupid stuff that isn't cool at all but you say it is?" 

He doesn't need to know that ketchup is one of the two things you have that provide some sustenance right now, then. You stared at him blankly, trying to maintain your pocker face without your sunglasses, and cursed your past self for dumbly taking them off, thinking you'd be safe within your own home. Pfft. Upon realising that he wouldn't be getting a response, he cleared his throat and smiled with a pitiful air on his face, not that you really saw. 

You were busy pocketing your phone and looking to see who exactly had called you-

"Sorry, Dave, we've gotta go!"

We have to do what now?

"We really need your help, so I'm sorry you're not really getting that much of a choice dude," 

He had yelled, over the noise that he was suddenly causing, along with the small lighting bolts(?) that were surrounding his hands and body. Why would you specify anything about his hands, though? 

Because they're fucking grabbing you, is why. 

==>???

You can't see shit. You can't feel any good shit. You have no shitting idea where you are, and you are just cursing yourself for having let this dream-pretty boy literally kid(man)nap you without a warning. All you can awknowledge now is that it's cold. Wherever you are is cold as shit.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

==>???

You can't see shit. You can't feel any good shit. You have no shitting idea where you are, and you are just cursing yourself for having let this dream-pretty boy literally kid(man)nap you without a warning. All you can awknowledge now is that it's cold. Wherever you are is cold as shit.

Or, it was cold just a bit ago. The thin blanket that was just draped over you seemed to suffice, and you could (try to) endure the rest of the cold that was washing over your uncovered feet. You rubbed your eyes a little bit, blinking slightly as you looked around. You could hear the small buzz of conversation and see the groups hat were indeed busy chatting away, and awkwardly blinked at the extreme sunlight. You need to cover your glasses with something as soon as possible. 

Examining what you're sitting under, which you conclude is a pile of grass, wet, cold fucking grass more precisely, you decide to get up. Brushing yourself out of instinct, you attract unwanted attention towards you as you squint like a baby delivered right out of the womb, but with a messier pile of hair atop your head. A slight gust of wind made your hair stand on-end, and you awkwardly tried to open your eyes to also 'examine' who this was. Whoever it was, they slapped a cap onto your head seconds after they appeared out of thin air, although you just concluded that to be a normal flashstep. 

Wait, who the fuck else flashsteps? 

You adjusted YOUR cap now, blinking blarily and, well, being met with a somewhat familiar face. Although, when the batterwitch took your jizz and stored it away you knew Dirk would get hurled into this, well no, that shithole of a world years after your death. This looks like a Dirk your age. Maybe it's sad to assume you're not in your own timeline anymore. He didn't say shit to you, just slapped the cap and left as he came. 

You're thankful for that, because you don't want to hold a conversation. Or so you thought, anyway. Your eyes still kind of hurt, so that's maybe why you didn't believe seeing Rose Lalonde, goth God, striding over to you (maybe to low-key make a pun about your name on purpose), watching your face contort into utter horror. You've been avoiding this woman and now she's walking towards you and she looks as stone-faced as ever and woah maybe she'll kill you just to make things better because you do not want to talk to her right now, honestly and this can NOT be happening-

"Hello, David." 

She mused, quirking an eyebrow. And upon that clearly poison-laced greeting, you had to respond and act fast. Fast as light, fast as the light the aliens used to take Stuart Little away-

"'Sup Lalonde." 

Once again, absolutely fucking perfect. You knew her smirk would widen by like, a quarter of an inch, and accepted your fate. 

"I see you do not appear to be wearing any shades," 

"I see you do not appear to be giving a damn fuck about anything else, like my cool as fuck clothes!"

"You don't usually dress like a black void, which is quite my style. I'll make sure to compliment your 'totally and completely' utterly ironic clothes." 

"Damn straight." 

You knew the conversation would dissipate from there, really, but you decided to let your attention span do its thing. So, instead, you took a look at what she was wearing, which was some sort of concoction between a lab coat and a white, normal coat. Some black lipstick graced her lips, as always, and she was wearing three-inch heels. It seems you were the one of the two almost mannapped and hoisted off to another universe in your tighty whities. You don't even know where you are, honestly. The place is green and you can breathe, and there's a lot of fucking people, and uh... Trolls, apparently, that are littering the place. Huh. Looks like they aren't killing each other. Or anyone that isn't a troll, either. You don't know if you should be worried or not, honestly. It seems that Roseanne, you know, her long-ass name that you barely mention to yourself because it haunts you, has taken the strategic hint and fucked off gracefully, decidedly walking off to piss on someone else's mood. 

==> D: notice the blue shit.

What blue shit? What are you on about? 

The ever-so-familiar hood was tickling your ear, making you scrunch up your nose, and reminding you of how much you detest not having your shades. That reminds you of the fact that an older version of your kid, or well, your bro, slapped this cap on your head as if he'd known you your whole life. You had nightmares about that guy kicking your whole ass and then some, and he's giving you his shit? Huh. 

The hood awkwardly settled on your shoulder while Johnathan Egbert settled back on his feet, and you shuffled your feet around when you felt his shoulder bump with your own. Looks like he was the same height as you, huh. 

"Hey! Sorry, my zappy powers don't really hold up for too long."

You, slowly, very slowly, turned your head robotically at him, staring into his soul and making it evident that you really need him to get to the point. It doesn't matter how pretty this guy was; you won't be able to think about the grace and hotness of anyone or anything if you're dying soon. 

"Well... We kind of needed to get our guardians here. I actually meant to get Dave's bro, but I accidentally zapped to you," 

He spoke, his tone a little regretful, besides shameful. What a way to make you feel like an accident all over again!

"-And I just couldn't leave you there! It was kind of late for that. But uhm, we're basically rebuilding the planet, and we agreed that we had to get Dave's bro since he's pretty good with technology?" 

"I don't have a bro, though."  
"Well, I didn't mean you, like," 

His gaze shifted and he leaned in, hand wrapped around your shoulder, which is honestly way too close for comfort, and pointing at something with his other, free hand. Couldn't he have just pointed without the whole touchy part in the first place? 

"There. That's Dave! Technically you too though right?" 

You awkwardly stared down a ten year younger version of yourself, clad in his own set of red pyjamas, coupled with a flow-ish cape. Your mouth formed a distinct 'o' and you shrugged a little, cringing once you remembered that John still has his arm around you. 

"But you don't actually need me, right, so can't you like, get me back the fuck home or something?" 

"Uh, I don't really know if that's possible. Like, I could try! But I don't think you'll be in the same place again?" 

Egbert tilted his head a little bit and sighed, promptly letting go off your shoulder (finally), before decidedly pushing you forwards with some unexpected amount of force from this scrawny-looking guy. After a long battle that you had within your own head, you began dragging your feet against the fresh, damp grass. Oh, right, you're not actually wearing any shoes or socks or anything in the first place huh? Sweet. You're out here supposedly meeting other, cooler alternate versions of yourself in black clothes, a borrowed cap, damp hair and a blanket. Also shoeless. That too. You continue to look around as you near the little groups of chattering uh, live beings. You think you see a young Rose talking to a troll almost as tall as yourself, and Dirk (or a version of him you guess) that's busy nodding away surrounded by some people you just realised you're nearing. It seems that John here as gotten tired of pushing you forwards, and walked in front of you. You had to face all of these guys at some point, be it as it may, or whatever the hell the expression was.

==> Dave Strider: get your conversational motherfucking skills on. 

Wait, what? Who, me? 

==> Dave Strider: be Dave Strider. 

You are now Dave Strider, however, you're the cooler, younger and much more badass version. What was that voice just now, anyway? Nevermind. You have much more important shit to think about right now, like how Dirk's literal idol is nearing your little group of friends, and how he's about to drop his ass in the middle of this and completely destroy the conversation. Well, it doesn't look like he actually... Wants to, from what you can tell by staring at his naked face. A Strider with their ass and soul on the line, a rare sight, you conclude to yourself. How ironic. Your cape is taken away by the wind, just a little bit, while TZ makes some space so that older, movie-director-you can fit in alongside with your bestest and only bros, who has had the biggest bromantic experience with you ever since he met you, John Egderp. You'd really rather focus on this version of yourself right now, and try not to shake everytime you see your actual bro, wandering around, all alive. You don't know what to do, what to say, this him never actually HAD you, never took care of you. He still fucking scared you shitless. And you're not sure how well you're going to sleep from now on, unless you settle shit with him somehow. 

He technically doesn't... Owe you anything, though. You already awknowledge that this is a different version of him, and you see that he has little to no idea about what he-- his alternate self-- has done to you. Fucked you up beyond some of the highest levels of fucked up, this level of fucked up is so rare and new that it doesn't even have a tier of 'mad fuckery' at this point. What's even worse is that he STILL has that fucking puppet around and you just can't even look at him, and it without--

You've spaced out for too long. Way, way too long. Shit. 

"... Yeah, that's cool 'nd all, but what can I do here so that..." 

You kept guiltily spacing out as the older version of you spoke, but within the two seconds that you listened to him speak, you recognized yourself in his attitude and voice. It was kind of gruff. His accent was much thicker than yours, and of fucking course you'd recognise yourself in him, smartass! He's you. You're him. He looks so defenseless even when he's pulling that rad poker face without any help. You're totally gonna alchemize a pair of cool shades for him. It'll be the perfect fucking way to start a conversation with yourself. Hell yeah.

 

==> Dave Strider: be Dave Strider.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's an artwork I forgot to upload and link, related to this. It's pretty old.  
> https://ceruleanknightofspac-e.tumblr.com/post/183160164340/for-a-fanfiction-im-working-on


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave has some him time.

CHAPTER THREE

==> Dave Strider: be Dave Strider.

You are now successfully the Original Dave Strider of this graceful story of wonders and maddening bullshittery that is your unfortunate pile of shit life. You bitterly disagree with your consciousness, that no, you are not actually somewhat irritated that you're stuck with a few undying kids and that you might be forced to venture into their world, and into the Medium in which they played to probably end up wrecking yourself further into this mess, and become one with them. Like, the cool kids gang. The Kool Kidz Kgang. Yeah, that sounds so much better. For now, you let the existential dread and slight depression slip their way between the poorly-repaired cracks of the wall around your brain, or heart, or whatever the fuck symbolistic bullshit you can muster right now. You haven't even gotten out of bed yet.

That's right, some time has passed. Somehow, sometime in which you manage not to monologue unironically to yourself as you help Dirk--, Bro, make plans for this little town you're all going to make. The time in which you spent with your Dirk, kind of but not really but he's all the same yours, with the younger and older Lalondes keeping you company. It kind of keeps you up at night knowing you're related to them sometimes. And so, a week had gracefully passed. You've noticed (with your eyes) that a Certain Someone was avoiding you, and you really didn't think about what you'd do if you ended up doing the tango with your own dumbass.

==> Dave Strider: get up and go do your shit.

You decide to do just that, and shuffle yourself out of bed, smiling to yourself in the comfort of your dark room, happy that you finally got some blinds, and navigated your man cave with as much pride and disorientation as possible, tripping over your own feet at some point. You quietly admitted to yourself, in a mutter, that you're groggy as all fuck. Your place wasn't a big deal, really, just a room in the middle of many that John and Co. alchemized out of their ass to make life just a little bit easier while you got everything up and running slowly but surely. You talked to Jade a little bit about this and she did mention the fact that populating the place isn't a problem. That's good, you guess, you don't really want to discuss kid fucking. Although, they're not exactly too young themselves. Getting to your bathroom as gracefully as a dying dog, you splash some water on your face and brush your teeth and hair. Leaning back, you take a quick look at your own face and let your left hand fall across your cheek softly, almost papping yourself. You snorted at the callouses on your own hand, and dragged your hand off of your face. You've been trying to be optimistic about this, you swear, but you don't really know if you want- fuck that, you do NOT want to go through with the plan that was set up for you. The prospect of dying only to come back to life as some sort of God really does not churn your butter. Like, at fucking all.

Sometimes, you think to yourself while you get dressed up for another day outside, when you don't get asked to come out of your hole and help, you wonder if it would've been better if you just decided to stay there. Then again, you could technically ask Dirk about what happened, but you're not 100% motherfucking sure you wanna know what happened to your ass in that future, especially if it was near. Mostly, because you despise thinking of this (un)fortunate situation as a good thing. You? A pessimist? Nah.

You check your hair one more time, and stroll right out of the door, just pulling it closed behind you. Honestly, why would anyone want to steal any of your dumb shit anyway? Squinting, you sigh and cover your eyes with one of your hands. Damn this shit planet having some sort of Sun, damn leaving your shades back in your own actual universe, damn-

"'Sup," curtly said, exactly like how you'd say it.

Right, that's you that's talking isn't it. That's new.

He's just standing there, existing, near your front door. He probably already awkolwedges how awkward that actually is in hindsight, and you can tell by the way the right corner of his mouth twitches downwards when he sees you squinting at him. What, are your wrinkles showing?

"Hey,"

Walking over to him, you notice that he hasn't been wearing his God Tier PJs lately. Was your arrival some sort of magical big event? You look down at him, because the little shit that is you hasn't been graced with being 23 and realising he was actually, in fact, a late bloomer, and raise your eyebrows in question. 'Why are you here?', they asked, menancingly.

Young You uncrossed his arm, letting you see his 'BITCHIN' T-shirt, making you gain one extra point of respect for yourself as you watched him extend his arm, cooly, towards you. A pair of shades was on top of said hand. You took them not too quickly, and not too slowly. Just perfect. You're flexing on this child, is what you're doing, and you don't know if he's caught on yet.

Probably has. You pop them on your face and let yourself smile at your own damn self, because God dammit, you should share a bro moment with yourself if you were so thoughtful as to make yourself another pair of cool shades. He simply nods his head, and you can tell he's about to go on this tirade of mumbo-jumbo talking that only you will get.

"So, bro and Dirk and Jane, and everyone else is actually all hells of busy right now, and I asked them if they needed any sort of help and shit, 'cause you know, I'm a true bro, and they said, 'no Dave, we don't need your help!! We're all strong and mighty on our own, where the ones who r gonna make it happen this time!' so, yeah, now I'm here, and I hope that's cool, because I had to tell you shit wasn't gonna go down either and, well, yeah."

"Sure, y'wanna come in and we can bro jam our shits out or something?" you replied immediately. Damn you for being incredibly sincere and vulnerable to yourself. Ah, the olden days. He blinks, slowly, or you imagine that he does so, and looks at you with a completely neutral face. He doesn't say anything for a moment, and then, he drawls out a low 'yeah, alright, sure,' and you shuffle back into your house with as much grace as once more; a dying fucking dog. You're a little bummed out that you don't get to feel useful today, but then again, you're also kind of greatful that you don't have to actually do anything today. You kind of miss your Ben Stiller-hyper-touched shades, but you'll probably cope with just this brand new, shiny pair YOU made YOURSELF, and keep living. Upon kicking your shoes off, you promptly let your hand raise and fall until you attempt to cooly switch the light on. All the while, Dave, you, younger you, has his back pressed against the door so much you think he might be able to actually fall through it.

Your room is... somewhat clean. The bed is half-assedly made, but the rug you stole from an older version of Roxy that seems to really dig Strider holes, she didn't really mind. I think she saw that as a chance to initiate a familyship with you, or however people in general call it nowadays. You like her, she's pretty cool, as cool as the ice that's been all 'round the fucking block and shi-

Dave smoothly coughs as a means to get your attention as you stare with the utmost arched of eyebrows while you're just casually taking your shoes off and setting them into the corner of your measly hallway. You should decorate those soon, honestly. You really should. Either way, you decide to let the mask of neutrality fall back onto your face and walk through your living room, or well, living and bedroom, whatever really. There was a bed in the corner, and a couch in the middle of the room right in front of your overtaken rug. Your blinds were still closed, and the place smelled of Cheetos dust. You're waiting for him to begin the conversation.

"Dirk really wants to meet you." What.

"Haven't we already met?" you reply, ignoring the awkward ice that's just been cut right in the middle of your living room, in an incredibly cliche and poetic Shakespearean position. You're looking over your shoulder, down at him, the blanket you were in the process of pushing into the edge of the couch and flopping down where it was before in your hands. And him, blankly looking at you.

Then he snorts. The edges of his mouth turn up as he realises you're doing this... epic pose, on purpose. He decides not to say anything anymore, and lets the conversation die out. You think that he probably knows you're going to excessively think about that statement on your own until you fully understand what he meant, and he probably knew that all he said would be useless and you'd try to figure this out on your own anyway. He's absolutely fucking right. Dirk probably wants to hang out with you. But he doesn't know how to make that happen. Dave just named himself wing man and now you have to make do with this amount of information you've been given, i.e, ask Dirk out on a casual brodate. You can do that, yeah. You wouldn't mind not being a hermit every once in a while, and you think he probably thinks the same. You take up some space on the couch, turn the TV on, and urge Dave to discard all his uncomfortable unwanted physical shit at the door and come hang on the couch; and that he does. You mumble half-heartedly in his direction, and he pointedly stares straight at you to make you understand that he didn't fucking hear you, and you mumble it again. Only louder.

"Turn off the light dude,"

"Sure," he kicks off his shoes and does as asked, then smoothly walks over to the couch, plopping down on it, trying to find a comfortable position.

The bright light from the TV is a somewhat welcome sight, glowing softly on everything that was within its sight, and you can't help but look at Dave's-- it's so weird to refer to him as that, you swear-- looking straight ahead and muttering critic comments at the shitty stuff that's been pre-recorded since 2013. Right, he never actually lived during that time, did he? You did. You kind of miss that era. No Harambe memes then. At some point, during some season of Modern Family, during some episode, during some minute, Dave Does A Vocal Thought. That is, to say, he says something instead of just thinking it, and that's a something you both sadly share.

"I wonder what my movies look like."

He thinks of you as him, and you're kind of touched. Like you're the same person, but not really. Like you're his older long-lost twin that he meets and accepts within the same day and loves eternally. You might shed an old man tear, especially now knowing that he wants to see your movies. You snort, shuffle your own ass off of the couch, and look for your DVD stack, the one you had asked to be stolen for you by your personal knight (or more realistically accurate, Heir of Breath) from some alternate version of yourself, or some fan, or whatever. Because you kind of really needed these. These were truly your babies. Unironically, you smile without meaning to as you stack through the first SJaHB movie that you've ever made, and find the TV's CD/DVD/360 circle slot before popping it in without a second word.

Dave does indeed stare at you in horror for the first few seconds after he spoke aloud without realising, like the utter dumbass that he is. Like the dumbass that you are, too. But that's fine. He's totally cool with you; totally safe. Happily, you walk back over to the couch, drag the blanket and messily throw it over you guys, and throw the remote at him, making it very clear that you Were Done Talking. He got the hint.

You drift off to the soft hums of the TV, shades poking downwards against your freckle-filled cheek, and you think you sleep more comfortably than you'd like to admit that afternoon.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

You drift off to the soft hums of the TV, shades poking downwards against your freckle-filled cheek, and you think you sleep more comfortably than you'd like to admit that afternoon. 

 

==> Dave Strider: stop reminiscing. 

Why? What's so wrong about thinking back on how you just hung out with alternate, younger you and bromanced it out a little bit? It was the first time you'd actually chilled out since you'd gotten there, anyway; Jesus. No one's capable of actually, full-on reading your mind anyway, from what you've learned about the rest of the people around here. Or more specifically, what your Rose has learned by doing her little psychologist gig on everyone without rising any suspicion. She even got the handle of Little Rose, although you think she probably realized she was getting analyzed right as it ended and it did leave her with a slightly sour face from what you could tell. It was kinda funny honestly. Little Rose has a long ways to go, my dudes. Even though she's literally already in her early twenties. 

Will Dave actually have a growth spurt if he ascended when he was only a teenager? Or is he going to be shorter than you forever? Are  _you_ going to grow once you get impaled on some quest bed that's supposedly yours? You have no fucking idea. 

It honestly doesn't matter right now. Right now, you need to get to the communal kitchen and whip up some shit to eat, because you haven't done so already. Obviously. You can feel your own stomach eating itself up. You sigh softly as you feel the squeaky soles of your feet against the marble of the room once you walk in; here you go. It's Dealing With People Time. You're an adult, you should honestly be used to this already. 

The smell of slightly burned toast, and the sound of some sizzling eggs (and hopefully bacon) are the first things you're aware of. Then, comes the fact that there's a soft light coming out of the opened windows while the literal artificial light is switched on in this big ass eating/chilling area. It really is just one big building in the middle of your settlement, separated into two different rooms; one's the kitchen, and one the public chilling area from the looks of it. You're currently walking around looking for some stuff to make pancakes. You really, REALLY miss some good fucking pancakes. You ended up squatting to look properly into one of the drawers and weren't too surprised once you almost tripped on your own laces and almost ate some concrete, and upon just falling on your ass with a little baby bag of flour splotched all over your plain, white T-shirt, you get up and casually dust (flour?) yourself off with the blankest face you could've ever, ever managed. And then you're being laughed at.

You turn around, looking at one of the occupied tables and see the man in the flesh, Dirk Strider, slightly snickering at that obviously sick stunt you just pulled. Oh. Who are you _kidding_? That was literally so fucking embarrassing. You make sure not to give away the fact that you knew it was embarrassing, though. You had a Reputation to Uphold. 

However, you don't hear him when he suddenly stands beside you, and you didn't exactly hesitate a little bit to almost bonk him in the face with your katana, although you guess that also caught him off-guard, because, next thing you know he's pointing HIS katana at you. Looks like yours, though. So it probably was yours. You see yourself leaving it for Dirk if you knew you were going to get fucking slaughtered. Just as quickly as you pulled it out of your ass, you put it back in your sylladex, and he did the same. 

Having nothing to do with your hands, you began dusting off the remains of the flour and take a moment to look at him; at Dirk. He's much taller than Dave, you note, and he has many more freckles, he's much more tanned. Wearing a pair of baggy, black pants and a white T-shirt. Wow, you've almost got matching outfits! You could totally go to prom like this now. You should stop getting so off-track when you're talking to yourself in your own head. 

You think Dirk realized you were silently mumbling to yourself, probably because he saw your shitty fucking mouth opening and closing with no words coming out and you were looking down in his direction but your shades weren't actually FOCUSED on him as he leaned down to scavenge for another bag of flour, one that wasn't destroyed by you and your dumbass being lazy to tie your own laces. You're an old man for absolutely fucking /nothing/.

" _Hey_ ," he breaks the silence. Said softly, insecurely, and you immediately greet him with the same word upon picking up on that. You? Desperate? Surely, you must be talking about somebody else. 

"What are you trying to make?" 

"Jus' some pancakes," you drawl out, and cringe slightly. Dirk doesn't share that trait between all of you guys, it seems. Even younger you, Dave, has a slight (almost unnoticeable, from what you've seen while actively hanging out with him) drawl, though Bro's and yours seems to be the thickest. You haven't really gotten a good chance to hang out with that guy, too, man. You really need to meet your long-lost family members properly once you get over yourself and start contributing to this simple conversation. 

"You wanna help?" good, that's good David, yeah. 

"Sure, I've never ate any though, but I know how to make them," was the response you'd gotten while you grovelled over to the fridge and looked in it for some eggs, noting the sad tinge evident in his tone. He didn't seem like one of the Striders that were very hard to read. The different circumstances have urged the younger ones to be more evident, more open with others. Honestly? That's probably for the best. Much easier to deal with life if you open up about it to people, you mutter to yourself. But, then again, you're too far beyond doing that honestly.  

And so, that's what you do. At some point, once the flour and eggs and sugar were all smashed into the same bowl, you let Dirk have a go at it; only to notice how he had slowly picked up the pace and at some point you think he was just aggressively battering away at the eggs without even noticing it. You were pretty sure that he was extremely close to splattering it all over himself, although to be fair, maybe you should let that happen just to retaliate for his snickering earlier. Jesus, that sounded a little bit evil. Regardless of that you decide to lean over, setting a quick hand on Dirk's left one and forcefully slowed down the pace for him. Looking up at you, he gave you a tight-lipped look and you think he might've internally sighed, too. He doesn't say anything for the rest of the time being.

Until you finish your very first, kind-of-fucked-up-but-edible pancake, and let it fall down on a plate. Even God loses his marbles over pancakes so fucking fluffy man, he'd take a bite of one of these and do such an acrobatic pirouette off of this handle right here- and it's time to stop, Dave. Instead, you focus on the way his gelled up hair is slightly disheveled a little bit, and how he's just clapping his hands together for some reason while moving to sit down. You have no idea how to cut through this silence, and you're pretty fucking sure neither does he. He keeps looking at you as if he's admiring something from far away, although you don't personally think there's anything else to admire but food right now. Alas, the pancakes had to have their finale too, and that they did once you stacked them one on top of the other on two separate plates, slipping them on the table; one in front of your seat and the other in front of Dirk while you watched him with a raised eyebrow, trying to gauge his reaction. He doesn't give you anything. Poker face extraordinaire, it is him.

You don't bother hiding your smile once he starts eating, though. He notices, you know he does, but he doesn't say anything. 

"So, what was it like? Where you lived?"

"I lived in the apartment you left me. The ground floor and garage were flooded, though." 

"Sounds like global warming."

"Yeah."

"And they dared say it ain't a true thing," you raised your eyebrows at him and he simply shrugged, not having anything else to add on that matter. 

The door creaks open and closed, and within a moment you're greeted with some pink and white, hugging Dirk's head before it moves on and hugs you. You've already given up long ago, and don't protest too much when she ruffles your hair out of place. Dirk and you offer her some of your pancakes, or better said, leftovers. She declines, surprisingly enough, and you shrug. You ask her what she's doing around here. 

"Jus' waiting a lil' on my mans Jake! I promised I'd watch a couple of movies with him, u kno?" you nod curtly in response, yeah, you think you know a little bit what she's on about. 

"Johnny boy was looking for you, btw! Said you've gotta do something important with him and stuff, you should go out there and look for him on something." again, you nod and proceed to get up, dumping your plate in the sink and giving them a little wave. Roxy had taken your place beside her ecto bro and you can't help but muse to yourself about how awkward Dirk's looking right now. You need to bust up and open some good old Strilonde time with them soon; you know that much honestly. Roxy waves at you ina  form of goodbye, and Dirk simply nods in your direction. 

==> Dave Strider: get the fuck out of here.

You're getting there, okay? Look, you did it just now! You opened the door and shuffled your own ass out if it just now. 

==> Dave Strider: look for John. 

Yeah yeah, you were JUST getting to that, holy shit. 

==> Dave Strider: be John Egbert. 

Wait, _what?_


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angsty shit, boys.

CHAPTER FIVE

==> Dave Strider: be John Egbert.

Wait, what?

==> Be John Egbert.

You are now John Egbert. You're a slightly troubled young man (as young as one can be in their early twenties (you're going to look like this _forever_ )) and you're currently mulling over your decision to accept throwing the older Striders into the old SBURB game to simply get to God Tier. It'd be a pretty good idea, actually, considering the fact that you simply cannot have any family dying. It is impossible. You will not allow it. 

You're acutely aware that you're just fumbling with your hands while you ask different people (trolls, Cherubs... wait, no actually! Just one cherub) about the whereabouts of the elder Dave. It isn't very hard for you to realize that he's actually a pretty big shut-in, and, you also figure that he solely comes out and tries to interact as much as he can with his ectogenetic family due to the fact that he aches for it, literally. He longs for family bonds. Your mind drifts off to your father and you can't help but feel even worse than you did at the beginning of this Mild Accident. 

You're wearing your pajamas, having gotten comfortable in them and also fully aware of the fact that you don't have to do anything to them because these things are literally _indestructible_ , and those were good enough reasons to not take them off ever again. Stumbling along, you take a longing look in the direction of D's room/mini house. You've all wordlessly decided to just call him that, because it was much easier to make a distinction between the two Time players like that. They don't seem to care, so none of you stopped. 

He's not home, from what you know, so you decide to check the last place available, the cafeteria. You dejectedly walk out five minutes later after being peppered with kisses all over by Roxy, and her telling you that he, in fact, just left. You're lazy. So you know what? Walking be damned, no, flying be fucking damned! You've looked everywhere for the guy via foot. So what do you do? 

You be the narrator.

==> John Egbert: be hecticPillager. 

John didn't get what the ever-living Michael Myers that _meant_ , sincerely, and with how tired he was, he wasn't going to second-guess it either. What was he doing again? Right. 

He brushed a hand through his messy bundle of dark hair, and tried not to think too much about the possible consequences of just invading someone's personal space out of nowhere. A wisp of blue, and a silhouette was what was left once he did so, and that's how he was somewhat anxiously standing in the middle of one of the Strider Residences. 

The pale-complexioned boy was just standing on that just-washed carpet, and he had a feeling he would be paying for that _one_ later. Some Monster cans were thrown around, papers strewn all over the floor as he tiptoed around, snorting at the stack of Horrible Movies he remembered getting for Ancient Dave. The blinds were half-closed, and there was a black blanket haphazardly folded on the couch; he took a look at it with a 'this is pretty expected' look, and stopped snooping around once he saw that the light was closed in his bedroom. Blinds closed, door slightly ajar. He had a nice idea. 

He had captchalogued a pie his father had made earlier. He tried not to think about his father wanting to die. 

That was kind of hard to do, actually. Fuck.

Slowly, you let yourself float up, just a little above the carpeted floor, and made your way to the bed. Upon confirming that your target was currently in a depressive episode you had no idea how to better, you located the head of the target, and then you did it.

You took the pie out of your captchalogue and made sure to smash it hard enough into his bare face without a second thought. One doesn't simply go back on a prank once they decide to act on it. 

David Elizabeth Strider, for one of the many times in his life, is scared shitless. He swore and swore and _swore_ and he _swore_ he felt his skeleton jump, he felt his tousled hair was already getting sticky with whipped cream, and he didn't know if he should be mad right after this, or sick The Fool that had challenged him so cowardly while he was in the middle of a little... nap.

That was going to be a full day of sleeping, but he declined admitting so even to his own conscious. 

Instead, he had slapped at the unfamiliar hand that was making sure to mold the bits of pie to his face, and hoarsely laughed. Full-on, 100% volume. Dave laughed, barely sitting up on his elbows to look at his intruder, raising an eyebrow in their direction and looking him up and down. Ever since he got here, he hasn't gotten much sleep. His mouth was dry, having easily fallen asleep, and when the only response he got was John simply grinning at him like a little kid, he decided that was that, and that he should get up and off of his ass and wash his face and change shirts. God, it was everywhere. Feet shuffled lousily over the carpet and he let a small sigh escape his chapped lips, not paying any mind to John following him around like a lost puppy. 

John had something on his mind, and Dave himself could tell. John was a pretty open book even when he tried his hardest to hide something from his closest friends. Does that mean that John trusted him to some extent? Or was he just hoping that the reason his sleep used to be so peaceful cares about his existence to some extent? He didn't fucking know anymore. 

"You don't have to go, if you don't want to you know," was what had broken the silence he himself didn't know how to break. He was pretty sure that this was just adding on to the ice that wasn't broken, because he knew exactly what John was talking about. He personally loathed this topic. 

He knew it had to be done, that he had to go and do it for everyone else- for _Dirk_ \- and simply stared in the mirror, at the reflection of John that was still there after he was done discarding his sullen shirt and washing himself a little. He didn't have his shades on; he had mastered the perfect poker face, though, and he'll be damned if he wasn't going to use it. He felt the warm, panicking prickle in his body worsen with every thump of his heartbeat that rung in his ears, and he just simply stared at John via the mirror, before shrugging wordlessly. Being told that he doesn't /technically/ have to go on a Total Death Quest to become some sort of God, that he isn't even sure he really wants to be considering the fact that he's been loathing himself ever since he was first returned to the orphanage, like an object. Because he wasn't perfect, wasn't exactly making him feel any different about the situation. The ball of thickening saliva that was forming in his throat currently wasn't helping the situation, and he didn't know what he should do. He didn't  know what he _could_ do. 

Shoulders tense, lower lip bitten, brows furrowed, John took the hints and let himself fall to the floor, having barely floated above it as he curtly watched Dave turn around abruptly, and letting John tightly wrap his arms around him. 

Every Dave, across every timeline, and every universe _ever_ will be the same at their core. And so, with that in mind, he had comforted this Dave that had so suddenly become their own, in the middle of a messy fucking bathroom. He let him press his face in his shoulder, low-key crying his heart out, and he simply hugged him as support. He didn't think Dave would break down so easily, especially this version of him that seemed to have no issue escaping feeling jams and emotional conversations. No, this time, the floodgates had opened. 

John let his left hand tenderly pat the space between his shoulder blades, and he couldn't do anything more than stand there. It might've been a minute or two, but it kind of felt like an eternity. Dave hadn't loosened his grip on the Breath player, and instead just stood there acting as if this Was Totally Normal, until his quiet snorts and sniffles had washed away. 

"Yeah, yeah I know." he had gotten a delayed reply from Dave, after so long, and it was perfectly neutral, indescribably devoid of emotion, and John knew that Dave knew that from now on he would be more of a brick wall than before. 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

While John Egbert and Alpha Dave Strider were busy weeping on one another's shoulders, our main and younger version of Dave, the one who wore his emotions more on his face, the one who had an  _amazing_ boyfriend, was mentally annihilating himself too. Maybe when one Dave cries, they all do? Like when a dog howls, and every other dog hears and they drop everything just to bark unintelligibly back. Maybe that's what this Dave was doing right now. Or maybe it just so happens that the Dead Daves Tell No Tales deal extends to feeling an abrupt amount of pain?

Probably not. This is simply the narrative, and coincidence was the main ingredient in this happening. There was certainly nothing ironic about this.

So, again, that's how he found himself in a pile of blankets pooling around his shoulders and feet, on the floor beside his bed, looking at old _Tony Hawk's Underground_ Gameplays on the good old archived site we know as YouTube. Dave lets his mind wander tastelessly towards the simple thought of 'are we going to make YouTube a thing again?' He supposed, that the answer would be yes, yes they would.

Only when they actually had a prominent population. After a couple decades of the Matriorb and, whatever else they find to populate Earth C, before he could enjoy the shitshow that YouTube was beginning to be. He wonders what it was like after 2009. Maybe he should ask himself.

Dave Strider wondered how he could so easily have a mental breakdown without so much as gasping softly.

Oh, that's right. That was Bro's fault. He scrolled aimlessly through the old archived videos and stupidly let his mind wander off; this wasn't good for him, and he knew, but he didn't really feel like trying to psyche himself out of his hole of crying and agony. He thought about Bro, his Bro, and thought about the endless days of melting sun and swords clashing against one another. He took a second to let his mind wander to the few good times he had had; too.

No for too long, though.

Bro was here. He was  _alive_ and yet... When he looked at him, and got a blank face-- not one of stone cold murder, no; one of confusion-- he looked and looked and looked and didn't find anything that actually was his bro. No puppets, no weird, toxic masculinity he had to take apart for years on end before accepting himself just a little, no surprise strifes. It terrified him. Terrified of the unknown, of the possibilities. Did he want to form a bond? An actual, real life, brotherly bond? Did he want to ignore him? Act as if he was just another person? He didn't know and neither did Karkat when he rambled off about this abruptly in the middle of a 50's movie marathon. He didn't know if he could handle asking Rose. Dave thought about asking the older one, technically, she's a therapist right?

He didn't know if that would really be a good idea, though.

All these things he had no idea about terrified him to no end, and he could feel himself recoiling in his barricade of blankets, almost like a slithering snake retreating back in its hole or wherever the hell they actually lived--

He was going on another tangent, again, alone, and without anyone to probe him into it. He always knew he did that, of course, however he wasn't quite sure about what he should do about it. Karkat told him that it ' **DIDN'T FUCKING MATTER, DAVE, IT'S A PART OF YOU AND WE ACCEPT IT** ,' and you've silently nodded in agreement, fully knowing you'd lose it in the first place.

He was right, technically. Dave could... talk to The Mayor? He always listened to him, even though he couldn't talk he knew that The Mayor was totally and 100% of the time all Hells of supportive. However... that would require getting up. Maybe he should? He'd already helped out with what he could, though he knew he personally couldn't do jack shit- his talents were worthless when it came to building a civilization from the ground up- and now, David Elizabeth Strider was free to roam all around and about the whole 100 feet worth of place to his homosexual heart's content.

Of course, instead of doing that (and perhaps looking for some type of closure and/or solace) he decided to weep like an overly emotional teenage girl in his room, in the dark, with the blinds shut and whilst watching 'aurwwe' play on and on. God, hadn't this game come out a long fucking time ago?

Slowly, he let his finger swipe up.

_Published the 12th of November 2011._

Nine years after this game was released, it was apparently still banging? Then again, he remembers avidly playing this by himself when he knew his Bro wasn't burning deep, deep holes into his head each time he moved (or somehow did it through Cal, which he had later learned was the one who had mentally fucked him up the ass and through technicality, fucked HIM up the ass, still, that doesn't mean he forgave him). Sometimes, on rare occasions, Bro would sit his ass down on his seat in the futon, and Dave would join him on it, cracking a couple of hours in until the shitty background music gave him a headache.

This leads him to bitterly remember the first time he fucked up his turntables, and how his bro had stared at him- furrowed his brows just slightly- and took them away in boxes. In his defense, he fucked them up after he had gotten his ass beat, and refused being patched up. Stumbled into his room, fumbled through his stash for some apple juice, and deluded himself into thinking that this was normal- that this was totally and completely okay. That this is what happened to everyone, he had set down the bottle- open, and like an idiot- on one corner. When he turned around he elbowed it straight into the whole thing.

Due to that accident, Dave was reminded that even though he was mentally controlled by a fucking puppet and beat him to shit- and it was bad, it was _horrible and_  he  _hated_ it, that there was some part of Bro that gave even a shred of a shit. Just a little bit, because when he had barged into his room a day or two later after not showing himself, he had done so with his turntables in tow, letting the boxes fall aimlessly beside the space they once were before strolling out without so much as a hello. That had always confused him. He never understood what exactly was his deal- what he did to deserve being treated like a piece of shit.

What confused him even more- pushed him more into his delusions, were these little things that he would sometimes abruptly do instead of beating his ass, like that time he wore braces as a little kid, he never really expected _that_ , or when he knitted him a sweater-- ugh. The tears won't stop coming, man. No. No, actually, he wasn't crying at all, what are you talking about? These aren't tears. he just dropped some water on his face by accident, yeah. That's it. Fuck, okay, he decided that this was enough angst. Enough feeling. Time to get up.

He sat in a pool of his blankets stained with some tears for another five minutes.

And another five.

 

  
Dave Strider got up forty-five minutes after he had originally planned, and even though that wasn't what was according to the original plan, a small part of his consciousness congratulated him that he had gotten up within the same day. He lazyily let his arm raise, and he had taken a whiff of himself to check that he didn't smell- although he was absolutely not about to take a shower anyway,- and went about his room, looking for a clean set of clothes. That was a good idea. He found a '2-PAC' T-shirt that had an iconic photo of Snoop on it, and tugged it on. A pair of grey sweatpants he had recently stolen from Dirk hung loosely on him and he made sure to scavenge for deodorant in case he would come across KitKat. Aha, found it. Applying it, he thought about what he was planning to do:

Step one: go outside.

Step two: walk.

Step three: walk the fuck where?

Maybe he should just go see The Mayor like he originally said he would, right? It wouldn't hurt to pass by one of his close bros, again, for the twelfth time today, right? Right. Let's put insecurities aside for a moment and let him take a moment to brush his hair with his fingers messily; trying to find his shades. He should turn the light on. Craning his head in the direction of the light switch, he pursued his lips together and let himself hover with the blankest of looks as he turned the light switch on, shamelessly. If he had flighty powers he should God damn use them. Especially when he was running on such low motivation  _and_ energy.

Light switch flipped, clothes on, phone pocketed. Shades? Nowhere to be seen. He humphed a little bit while slightly floating in the doorway to his messy piece of shit room (as he had personally called it in his mind a few times after getting up) and let his eyes, heavy-lidded and drooping with dark bags under them, fall onto the bed. That's basically where he was before, right? Wouldn't be an issue to find them, after all, it wasn't like he had thrown them somewhere else when he had sat down in a pool of his own pity and disgust, they were just... simply knocked off by his hands when he was trying to dry his face after water had magically been dropped onto it. Yeah.

Dave launched himself into a frantic search of eye shields. After a solid fifteen seconds of rummaging around through his stuff he finally, finally found them. Touched by Ben Stiller's wrinkly face (and John's prepubescent little hands) made them extremely and perfectly ironic. Inner monologue down with, he put them on and actually walked out of his house. Well, that's step one done. After closing the door, Dave took a second and looked around before walking in the direction of the public lounge area in the middle of their little campament, pocketing his hands and regretting his decision. Step two done. Where to go now?

He took a long look at the building where the whole public space thing was going on, and looked at it up and down before sighing again, pinching the bridge of his nose and before taking another step forward, willing himself into walking towards his sweet, sweet Mayor. This is it. He was making it happen.

Dave Strider mentally slapped himself for having quoted thirteen year-old him, and let his mind wander towards his old comics as he gingerly dragged his feet across the grass. He smiled a little bit to himself, allowing himself that much, and walked over. Opened the door, continued walking, and curtly muttering a 'hey,' at Dirk, who was still plastered to the kitchen seat and listening to Mom babble on - wait, no, that's Roxy. He briefly let himself sigh out of his nose (snorting air out of it at a high velocity, basically) and made sure not to smile a lot more than he was comfortable with.

Damn him.

He decided to go and get something refreshing, something immaculate. Perfect. Angelic, even. He went to the fridge and popped an alchemized bottle of AJ open after closing the fridge, making his way to the living room area (next room over).

  
And when he got there, Bro Strider was sitting his ass on the cold marble floor, legs spread out a little bit while he spoke about rebuilding the 'perfectly abundant metal ass of Can Town', and that he would, in fact, make it the Can Metropolis. His pair of shades were perched on the top of his hair, sans cap, and a pair of glasses hung onto the bridge of his nose with the way he was craning his head in on one of the cans, seemingly smouldering two together with some rod of fucking fire that he didn't exactly know the name of, but remembered clearly from one of D's antique movies. Well.

Oh well.

He saw the way Bro's eyes crinkled with old ass age, something he'd never seen on Bro -  _his_ Bro - and he held his breath cautiously as he forced himself to keep walking towards him. If The Mayor could hang out with him, then he was safe. Yeah.

He hoped that this wasn't a trap and that Bro didn't actually feign not remembering him just to trap him into a fake feeling of safety and kick his ass into next fucking week.

  
~.~.~.

==> hecticPillager: stop being the narrator, and let the characters of this story actually appear into it.

Fair enough, no need to be fucking pushy.

~.~.~.

==> hecticPillager: be Rose Lalonde.

Which one?

==> hecticPillager: be beta Rose Lalonde.

You are now supposedly a flighty broad. You've had some mild (humongous) headaches lately and you've barely spoken about it. You suppose that would have to do with the excruciatingly irritating fact that you're a Seer of Light, and you're doomed to eternal suffering. Or well, you know, you just have to know these things. It's taken you some years to accept the fact that you're the one that guides people and helps the leader more or less, even if your leader is a bucktoothed derpy, yet somewhat loveable idiot. You're old, and you turn twenty three this year- your hair was styled just the same as always, especially with Kanaya's expert hands styling it for you every once in a while. And, well.

You've been busy.

Ever since the matriorb came into your possession, thanks to Roxy, you've been down in the caverns nonstop, working alongside your benevolent wife and trying to make sure troll kind doesn't go to shit entirely. Your connections with the rest of the world (also known as all of your friends) have been drying up slowly and dying out, and you try not to fault yourself too much over these things- even though you know it's really your fault. You'd rather stress yourself over who exactly is going to take care of all these grubs instead, because you've all already settled that you won't really be shipping a hundred each to each one of your supposed friends and  _their_ friends. Then again, John's been a little bit busy with setting up some sort of Salamander Kingdom of his own, so you just looked at him from afar and snorted.

You're a little bit happy that everyone agreed it was time to bring back the guardians one by one, well-- drag them over from another universe. It's certainly changed the pace in your community. For the better, of course. Otherwise you'd recount this story to yourself (evidently, who else would be listening to you talk to yourself _in your head_?) whilst gripping a bottle of over-the-counter painkillers, limbs tangled up in your blankets tiredly. You hadn't gone through with tending to the children today, and you don't think you'll be able to do so until you learn to handle your near constant headaches.

Maybe you should pester Calliope later. She never did say no to conversations and somewhat concerning personal problems from what you've heard and witnessed.

Maybe you should just talk to yourself about it.


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

You're still Rose Lalonde, you're sure. Or, better yet, the main timeline Rose Lalonde- not the one with so many published books. Although you spent your fair share of sleepless nights with Dirk (your father), and speaking about your accomplishments- although they weren't really yours you suppose- and milled over the many possible outcomes of your current life. You briefly wonder if it would be best to simply grow out this planet's population and live through with it, or just skip to the good parts. With the way everyone seems to be getting, slowly but surely, you'll soon be coerced into being given a ride by brother dearest into the far-fetched future.

You digress. Then slowly untangle your limbs, kicking away at the blankets that you so-easily wrapped around yourself, and sat up. The blinds were down, barely letting any light shine in, and you could feel your hair stick up in odd places. At least you had the decency to wash yourself. You get ready to sigh with all your heart, however it seems that your tongue is stuck to the roof of your currently desertuous mouth. Your jaw probably breaks hypothetically while you yawn and stretch your whole body out. Maybe like that you'll actually be able to coerce yourself into getting up. The prominent and dull pain, the one that was stirring around the back of your head, briefly awakes, and you don't know how the fuck to feel about that. Life truly is suffering, apparently. You'll wash some painkillers down with water as soon as you manage to get up either way; which is exactly what you do once the searing pain decides to travel to your temples and forehead.  
Life's really like that, huh?

Let's move that thought process along, Lalonde.

==> Rose Lalonde: check the buzzing phone on your nightstand.

Your eyes and ears register the almost omnious way in which your phone buzzed about, and you stared in its direction for another moment before internally sighing in defeat; why? Well, you really were Not In The Mood to conversate today- however. It might be Kanaya. For your mind? That was more than enough already. You saunter as quickly as you can will your body into the direction of your old, rusted phone and remind yourself into getting someone to alchemize one for you before this one completely throws itself off of the proverbial suicidal cliff. You've got a few messages, apparently. You're just going to... ignore those- yes. There's Kanaya, and her jade text dimly glowing on your screen. Having told her almost nothing of your condition, you can clearly see how she masks her 'plain' and 'simple' questions with underlying worry and ulterior motives- not that they're the horrendous sort of ulterior motives, of course. You've put this off for long enough as it is, you may as well actually have the common decency to see what your dearest has left for you.

\--grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 14:34--

GA: I Am Aware That You Are Currently Asleep

GA: However I Will Briefly Leave You This Message In Hopes That You Will Not Just Ignore It

GA: Are You All Right

GA: We Really Need To Talk

GA: Weve All Been Worried About You

GA: Call Me When You Wake up

\--grimAuxiliatrix [GA] stopped pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 14:45--

Your thumb hovers over the screen a little bit and you shut your eyes before they stopped burning incredibly. The accumulation of stress, badly-slept nights, and growing depression have very evidently gotten to your psyche and by extension your body. You don't know what to do about this, though your mind wonders off to simply accepting whatever it is that wants to get in your head and rest for once. But... you know, you know you can't just do that. Things are very much more complicated than just, /that/. The rational part of your brain resolves to figure this out a bit later and you get up once more; this time picking out some clothes and heading to the small bathroom you've crappily built for yourself. Your hands press against the fogged up tile, forehead pressed under the showerhead as you think. That's all you ever do- think, and solve, and oversee. Seers of light sure were something. You remember just how fruitless it is to get angsty over your own Godtier, and resolve not to think about it too much (just to make sure your head doesn't /actually/ explode, at this point). Your thumbs hover over your smartphone once you get up and dry yourself well enough, and you considering giving her some sort of heads-up that you'll be doing just that before actually calling her. Doing so brings you some solace, so you suppose you could say that you mostly shoot her a message for your own comfort.

\--tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering grimAuxiliatrix [GA] at 15:56--

TT: Very well.

\--tentacleTherapist [TT] stopped pestering grimAuxiliatrixt [GA] at 15:57--

Your breath shakily leaves your lungs, almost as if your throat was caving in on itself. That feeling could simply be because you've been inhaling steam for too long- and you were only half wrong, of course. You're never fully wrong. Or maybe you're just in denial half the time. Regardless of the actual answer to that hypthesis- it isn't vital to you right now- you walk out of the bathroom barefoot and make your way to the living room. Swiping the cylyndrical bottle up and easily popping three pills, you dial your breath-taking wife and wash down the medicine with some tap water (which was perfectly good, considering how 'perfect' everything in this universe ought to be).The dial up tone begins beeping in your right ear rhytmically and you let your mind trail off whilst waiting...

==> Rose Lalonde: be Dave Strider.

==> Rose Lalonde has no idea what the fuck you're on about.

==> Rose Lalonde: is Dave Strider.

Your name is Dave Strider, and you're currently busy staring at the most abusive person you've ever met in you entire fucking life. Who exactly is this shitfuck of a person? Your bro. Brother. Ectogenetic father and brother. To summarise a few points: he sucked, he sucks, and will sucks. This version of him is some sort of untouched shard, one that's still moderately fucking weird, but not enough in the illegal and grotesque motherfucking way in which you yourself were brought up in. 'Brought up,' is being too generous at this point, anyway. Your feet glued themselves to the marble flooring the very moment you saw him, and you really don't know why they decided to stop mid-walking towards him. Not /him/, towards The Mayor. Yeah, you were walking towards The Mayor. Who just so happens to be all buddy buddy with uh... a scumbag. That doesn't remember a thing about you. Well, you mean, technically he never met you in the first place. You never existed to him.

You don't know if that's worse or not at this point.

The cool façade had been pulled on from the very moment in which he stepped outside of his house, and he carefully let his face tip down to get a better look at what Bro's hands were busy with. More cans, of course. Dave expected Bro to be getting ready to slice him up like a special salmon fillet that was gonna be served as an entrée tonight. Guess not. Or... well, you never know with him. He always pushed you further and further past your breaking point, and you've never had the chance to have a conversation with him really- not an actual one. You will your feet into walking forwards and you promptly thumb the outline of your pockets- having shoved your hands in them earlier- and let your back crane forward as you took in the sight of a new building sight in your settled town.

  
  


Should you even talk to him about what happened in your past life? Well... it'd be a lot fucking easier to if the guy that took the fattest shit alive and the one you should speak about wasn't also _the guy you have to speak to,_ actually! Well, whatever. It's showtime. You've caught his attention, although he's simply looking at you with evident curiousity and weariness, the one you can normally see on someone his age, and realise that this is the first time you see the guy's eyes. Then again, you already knew the guy was just Dirk but older, and Dirk had weird orange-y eyes- all orange aesthetic he was- and you shouldn't be the one talking smack about eye colours, should you. 

  
  


No; you should not be talking shit about eye colours. Rose's eyes are  _lavander_ for fuck's sake. Your shoulder's still sagged when you gesture with your right hand, making it obvious wordlessly that your delicate behind will be taking a seat down on the cold, solid floor for the time being. 

The Mayor simply looks at you with his beady eyes and gives a brief nod, acknowledging your decision. Now's the time to be either shitting your pants in fear or shitting your pants in astonishment. What does Bro Strider do? He looks at you with the same expression and pats the clear space beside him for you, seemingly responding in the same fashion you asked your anterior question: wordlessly. His muscles don't twitch in muscle language for 'I'm going to beat the ever-living fuck out of you,' and you think you saw his expression lighten up even more than it was before.

Still, you feel uneasy. As you sit down wordlessly, you feel your body doing the moving on its own, as if it wasn't really you that was guiding it along; and with realising so, you register that your brain's about to bully you into remembering a childhood memory. Now out of all times, really? 

You watch your older-brother-but-not-really smolder more cans together, now with much more care (since it seems he gives a shit about burning you now) and lean back, supporting your lower half with your arms (you know, the ones that're itching for a sword to hold). 

  
  


–

_It was hot, so hot._

You could feel the queasiness travel from the inner depths of your gut to your arms, turning them into jelly. The heat's unbearable- and you feel like the whole world is clinging to your back in terror. Your mouth is dry, and your eyes are inexplicably full of brewing emotion (then again, who could see those? You were wearing shades). What did you do to get here this time? What annoyed him this time around? 

  
  


_What did you do to suffer so fucking much?_

You brought Lil Cal like he told you to, because he left him down there to stare at you- haunt the shit out of you. Were the cameras not enough to know what you were doing almost constantly? Was having this creepy fuck of a puppet really necessary? He- it- it'd show up randomly sometimes. Out of nowhere. It would haunt the shit out of you day and night, and after being witness to this bullshit for so long, you're pretty sure that fucking  _thing_ is  _alive_ . You held your breath, arm raising to throw the wool ass towards the edge of the terrace. And you know, you know he wouldn't allow his precious puppet to get 'killed', or whatever. 

  
  


** You stop reminiscing; you already know what happens. What happened every single time: you got your ass handed to you. **

  
  


The only difference here now is that your feelings on these memories changed from set-on adoration and curiousity to bittersweet disgust and pain. 

  
  


_ The smell of metal still gets to you. _

  
  


–

  
  


Once you come back to the real world and stop imagining things that happened over a decade ago, you notice that you're not staring at Can Town or The Mayor (while he thinks of ways to express his gratitude), and that you've been staring at your older brother for a long, long time now. Possibly after having taken a more... comfortable position on the floor. 

You only come back to because his hand is on your shoulder, and he's lightly pushing it back and forth instead of punching you in the face- and it looks like you just got knocked out by some prime date rape drug, doesn't it.

Yeah, yeah it actually does. 

  
  


Sigh.

  
  


==> Dave Strider: be Dave Strider.

  
  


Haha, that's so funny. It totally wasn't already used previously. Beta Dave Strider embarrassed himself into changing the point of view.  _ That's _ how bad it got, apparently. Oh well.

You remember your first time dying of embarrassment; he'll fucking live. You have more important matters at hand, evidently. And those are...

Repositioning your legs on John's lap. You admittedly bawled your eyes out on the shoulder of a half-stranger (not completely because you take solace in knowing who he was in his past life, and  _ yes, that was it _ ), but that's showbiz, baby. You gotta lose some sometimes. The other important thing you attend to is the bowl of chili Doritos that's settled on your knees. John watched you like a harmless hawk once you tumbled out of his arms and into the living room. 

You were busy looking at old reruns of shows you've seen a million times and that John didn't- somehow- and that's it. Your mind is blank to an extent, you think. Why? Well, let's recount some things:

  1. You're laying about with the guy you had dreams of/with for more than half of your life.

  2. IN A _DIFFERENT UNIVERSE_

  3. He let you bawl on his shoulder.

  4. You have to go out and die soon, because you're a Strider and Striders persevere.




  
  


While you think about this stuff, you let your hand search for the bowl while listening to Doctor Phil rip on a little child, and well, you know.

  
  


That's when he settles his hand on yours. For a moment, you think it was just out of coincidence- this wouldn't be your first clammy-Dorito-dust-hand-holding, but usually it lasts two seconds. Now this is lasting more than  _ three _ seconds in itself. 

 

 

TG: dude

TG: thats mighty fucking gay


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

Your name is still Dave Strider, of course, however you're thirty years old and awkwardly shoving a handful of chilli-flavoured Doritos in your mouth. You're eyeing several-years-younger John; looks like his blood has run cold, and you consider feeling bad for him for a second before deciding that the best case scenario would be to just forget that any of this has ever even happened. It was just, some random hand-holding over some Doritos. Wait, you weren't even  _holding_ hands! Yeah, that's it. It's fine. You're fine. You're always fine, you're Dave Strider; the epitome of total coolness and calmity.

You also decide to pretend that this moment (the one in which you were busy freaking out) has (also) never happened, and instead take to catch a quick glimpse of John's tired and worn-out face. Man, with all that depression hanging over his face, you think he might've just forgotten his hand there for a quick moment. _But_ , he also could've NOT left it there. Why do you even care, anyway? You should not be this worked up over a three-second slip from a straight guy from another fucking universe. Focus on Dr Phil. Just... on the Philster.

You briefly unglue your eyes from John's sagging shoulders and prominent eye bags, and watch as Dr Phil blinks in a brief moment of silence after the Reincarnation of Pocahontas settles in her high chair, and well, you know. After they show her face on the grand TV screen- what, is that shit smeared on her face? What even _is_ that? You feel bad for the cameramen that had to put up with the smell of _that_. Your oncoming sleuth of dick-in-shit jokes are cut off by John's surprising attempt at readjusting your hairy legs on his crotch. You consider ripping on him about it because, duh, funny; but think again; you don't know if you can pull this off and present your poking-fun-of-him as tier six irony, because, feelings.

We could talk all day about Dave Strider's undecided and mangled feelings, however we have to move the fucking narrative if we want to _get anywhere_.

And that's what we're doing.

==> Dave Strider: be John Egbert.

Sorry bro, can't do that just yet.

==> Dave Strider: be Dave Strider.

You could be embarrassed for another thousand years, you suppose. The world apparently doesn't give a shit, since you're back here, in the conscious world. Decapitating yourself via getting your older-bro-slash-guardian-but-not-really mad looks like a very appealing idea right now, but apparently you're not allowed to have any good times; why? Well, he's busy being _concerned with your well-being_. Who _DOES_ that? Anyone but Bro Strider- Dirk, Strider. That's actually his name, after all. He felt too awkward to introduce himself at the beginning, or that's how you saw it anyway. Since when could you read your brother?

He's stopped shaking you now, and decided to just pull you up by the underarms and drag you over to the closest couch, dumping you on it with some level of ' **I Give A Fuck!** '. Again, that scares you shitless. Your body goes rigid- you're staring at whatever's in front of you instead of taking a look around and surveying your surroundings like you were taught to do, because if you do you feel like you might be forced to interact with him. He probably knows that you're awake already anyway; you're just hopeful.

You decide to risk tilting your head to the left a little bit, looking over the couch cushion as much as you're able to in this position. By a pair of black-panted legs there seems to be... The Mayor, and if you took your head out of your ass for a second and stopped hoping for it to be someone else, you'd admit to yourself that that really is just Bro being dragged away by The Mayor, dragged who-knows-where, that is.

Since when did Bro Strider follow _anyone_? Fuck, you've got so many burning questions to ask. They burn so fucking much at this point that you're pretty sure it's just the CGI lava in LOHAC. At this point, your internal rumbling doesn't make sense to _you_ , of all people.

Okay, Dave, stop thinking bullshit thoughts.

You get up, joints cracking just slightly. You might have been out for a little bit longer than you originally thought, or you were getting old. Ha! Yeah right. Imagine aging past twenty-five with these powers. Your hazy vision focuses on your clenching hands, which are apparently busy fisting themselves in your shirt. Well that's totally not a weird fucking thing to be looking at right now.

The dull ache of probably passing out and gliding your precious head against pure concrete creeps up on you slowly, but surely. Your head feels like a bowling ball right now, and the floor might just be your bowling alley again if you decide to be stubborn and get up.

But you don't.

Instead, you wait it out. See what Bro will do once he comes back... If you really needed to abscond while not fearing for your life at all, you could... Fuck with time, a little bit. Just a little. No time jumping.

You're briefly reminded of the neverending tick tock in your head and automatically start counting up the milliseconds again. What are you even counting anymore? Who knows. You sure as fuck don't need to know right now. You have more important things... To do. Right. What were you doing again? Checking Time like it's your unstable trust fund baby and you're the unprecedented dad. That's what.

Everything seems to be fine. With the fabric or Time, not with you, obviously. Is anything ever fine with you? Karkat would probably slap you for thinking like that (good thing he doesn't know you think like that).

For the duration of your time spent waiting for your older brother (but not really) you think about Karkat and the inane shit he'd be talking about at a time like this. That proved to be an effective time-waster because you're suddenly met with the sound of unruly steps in the living room. Of course, you're caught off guard.

He's back with his cap turned sideways, which has you fucking baffled but you know better than to point it out. You would've thought that it was something 'ironic' a long time ago, but you know better now. Or well, you don't. You still think that it might be ironic, however don't make the effort to gush to yourself about how 'cool' it is. Which is what you used to do when your older brother used to just move. You're more interested in leaving as soon as possible, and then again you're pretty sure that ain't happening no time soon.

Bro walks around the couch silently, holding a blanket and what seems to be like you-don't-fucking-know, because you can't tip your head up and look lest you want to pass out or something _again_. While he's busy with kneeling down in front of the couch, you take to staring shamelessly with your shades on, hyperaware of your facial expression now that he's right beside you. His body looks... pretty much the same, except it doesn't have a sword imbedded in it. Oh, huh. Looks like he's holding a pack of frosted peas in one hand, and waiting for you to get your head out of your fucking ass and stop pretending that you're asleep or just acting like you have permanent brain damage.

And if you DO have any, it's his fault for sure in the first place.

Well... not _his_ his fault, but still a _him_.

You sit up as much as you can again without uttering a word and watch as he palms the back of your head around like he's looking for some hidden skull tumor. This reminds you of the better parts the strifes had; he'd sit you down on the toilet seat and patch you up while giving even a quarter of a shit and according to your shitty experience _that_ was a sight only to behold after an intense ass-kicking on a schorching hot rooftop out of nowhere.

You used to think that every family had their own thing- their own special sort of activity. Their own way of doing things, and maybe looking back on it, you might've been in total fucking denial about how you were treated by the only person you could physically rely on. Yet, the way he was touching you wasn't automatic; nor rigid. Maybe like something he'd done a thousand times. Once you realised that, you snapped out of your own internal stupor.

Bro's eyes were already taking a long, suspicious look at your face when you finally decided to come back to reality and put your head back down on the armrest. Or that's how you perceived it, anyway. Guy never took off his sunglasses. If he wanted a seat, well, too bad. You need this whole couch for yourself more than he does. He already knew that- since he just opted for leaning in slightly and staring more at your face. Okay, we've now jumped over the border known as 'creepy'.

Once Bro Strider decided it was time to retract his- his whole damn self away from you, he decided to actually speak.

"You good?"

Same voice, different words.

This has now officially validated just how scared shitless you are of the man. Nodding curtly in response to him seems to do the job, and your somewhat-brother leaves it at that. Looks like he's happy with just that. No 'speak up like a man' no 'I didn't hear you'. Nothing. Nothing you were ready for happened in your first one-on-one encounter with him.

He returns back to making some sort of Can Metropolis, and you take to watching him do so from afar without interrupting.

Now then.

==> Dave Strider: be John Egbert.

The reader might think that this is counterproductive and that it'll merely serve to explain John's feelings towards the current situation at hand, and sure, the reader would probably love that. Which situation? The one we begun this chapter with, of course.

 _However_.

This John is currently from the future. Which, in a sense, is the present for him. So, _that_ will have to wait.

Moving on...

After the short time you got to spend with these new Striders, and Lalondes, and after watching Rose awkwardly tear up once she was successfully reunited with her mom- you know, the one that also plans on dying. With your dad. Because. They're together? You're pretty sure they're together; having wearily eyed them when they held hands together from afar, then almost imagined your guardian having sex and cringing majestically at your own stupid; stupid brain!

...

If you were flexible enough, you would kick yourself in the face right this instant. Anyway- what were you talking about again? Right- after all this time, and all this preparing, it was finally time to get your Retcon abilities on.

Or that's what you _would_ be doing if you could find D anywhere! God, he's such a dick. First, he needed his actual Mtxc, which looked like a pretty cool sword. Then, he complained about making a plan for action. Lastly, he's late!

That sword though...

From your knowledge, also known as your source Dirk Strider, he seemed to be part of some sort of 'order' (as he put it). When interrogating D about this (he told you he'd tell you all about your alternate-universe life, or as much as he knew anyway, you hung out with him regardless) he merely waved it off and unironically used some sort of metaphor in which he had to 'follow a moral code' and 'kick ass to save people'. So... kind of like a Knight. He only got the class and aspect talk afterwards, when he probably spoke to Dirk about it and he went on his own Rose-esque tangent about it.

Bro was beside you, all silent. Not that you knew what to say to him anyway! The guy was such a rock. When Jade first saw him, she almost punched him out of the universe. _Literally_. It had been confirmed that this guy wasn't that sort of threat, by Rose, duh. He was pretty much free to roam all over the place after getting threatened to be put down, decimated, tortured eternally and brought back to life over and over again.

You made sure to snatch a Bro that didn't have his own Dave, though. The Dave that was supposed to be his had apparently been taken into the system, and seeing as he (Bro) won't talk about it further (or about anything at all), you're all left to speculate until Dirk wakes you up some day and tells you he cracked the old man.

It looks like his affiliation with puppets wasn't as big when he wasn't possessed by literally every end-game villain, either, which is well. Pretty great.

He did what he was brought here to do, better than any of you expected, and preferred to move around instead of talk to others. Like D (the shitbag who is extremely. Late. Right now.) he even looked a little bit interested in getting to know his so-called family. But beyond that? Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Either way...

You'd really rather not think about Dave's bro right now, you have shit to attend to!

You see D flash-step five minutes later and the little resolve you once had was broken by his smug smile, pointedly directed at you.

You briefly remember that you could easily just Retcon your way to the quest beds with ease. Or, better ease than before. Fuck! So, in conclusion...

You're dumb.

You made your friends suffer.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid!_

The gig is up when your face scrunches up in immediate first-hand shame, and by then, you know both Striders know something's up.

==> John Egbert: awkwardly hold hands with two gay men and stop looking like a bottom.

Trying.

==> John Egbert: do a cooler windy thing.

On it.

**Author's Note:**

> Did y'all like... Like this.


End file.
